As a child, I learned Mandarin Chinese in a different way than most of my peers. My Asian-American mother took it upon herself to teach me using old Taiwanese textbooks of her own. While many of my Asian friends went to Chinese school and gradually gave it up, my mother’s persistent approach led me to become proudly fluent today. Recently, I’ve begun to understand just how interesting this education really was. The textbooks my mother used were owned by her parents and date back to the 1960s - when the small island of Taiwan was still under Kuomingtang (KMT) government martial law. During these at home textbook readings in elementary school, I’d come across passages praising historical figures like 蔣總統 (President Chiang Kai-Shek) or entire stories dedicated to the brutality of a random group of people called “共產黨 (Communists).” To an Asian American kid in the 2010s, this made no sense to me, and my mother would do her best to explain the historical context of what we were learning. These explanations were sufficient, but I was always curious about the greater story lying behind the textbook pages in front of me. Now, as a college student taking numerous politics and history classes, I have a chance to understand this story more fully. This project started a long time ago, with my mother and I reading 20th century textbooks, and has led me here.

How to Teach History

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Continue storytelling with ArcGIS StoryMaps and keep your content. Request that Esri migrate your account to ArcGIS Online by May 31, 2025, and complete migration by June 30, 2025.

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After one year, you will need to purchase an ArcGIS Online subscription to continue using ArcGIS StoryMaps. Check out the StoryMaps <link>retirement page</link> for more information on the ArcGIS Online subscription options.

ArcGIS <link>StoryMaps</link> is the professional version of StoryMaps and is available as part of <link2>ArcGIS Online</link2>. Both products share similar storytelling capabilities, so if you are familiar with StoryMaps, you'll feel right at home with ArcGIS StoryMaps. Visit the <link3>retirement page</link3> for a detailed comparison between StoryMaps and ArcGIS StoryMaps.

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Both of these options include access to ArcGIS StoryMaps and the other ArcGIS Online apps and capabilities. Please note that there is a price difference between the two options that you will need to pay if you want to keep your account active when your free subscription expires. See the FAQs on the <link>StoryMaps.com retirement page</link> for more information about these subscription options.

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